United We TransformCreate teamsGrade your agenda
Exercises/Reflection and Learning/Treasure Hunt
Team Reflection ยท Reflection and Learning

Treasure Hunt

Treasure Hunt is a team reflection exercise for reflection and learning: it helps participants reflect on experience and turn observations into learning.

5 to 15 minutesTIME
Medium group (9-25), PairsGROUP SIZE
ActiveENERGY
In person, RemoteSETTING
High cognitive loadCOGNITIVE LOAD
Strengthens Learning Transfer This reflection and learning exercise strengthens Learning Transfer, one of the eight Gathering Effectiveness pillars.

How to run it

  1. Explain the objective of the activity and how the challenges are designed to foster collaboration and learning.
  2. How the winning team will be determined (if applicable).
  3. Give each team their first clue and explain where to look for the next ones.
  4. Be available to answer questions or provide additional hints if needed.
  5. Copies of the Treasure Hunt handout for each participant (free from download at bottom of page)
  6. Explain that this exercise is designed to allow the team members to become more acquainted with each other.
  7. Hand out a copy of the Treasure Hunt to each person.
  8. Ask the participants to move around and find people with at least one similarity with them (e.g. born in same county), and one dissimilarity (e.g. worked for Abbey for different lengths of time).
  9. No-one is allowed to complete more than one slot on any one card.
  10. The winner is the first person to have all lines completed.
Live facilitator

Run this exercise live

The facilitator console stays in this browser. Its QR handoff is a short-lived participant snapshot containing only public exercise instructions, phase, prompt, and timer state.

Prompts to use +

Explain the objective of the activity and how the challenges are designed to foster collaboration and learning.

Give each team their first clue and explain where to look for the next ones.

Be available to answer questions or provide additional hints if needed.

Explain that this exercise is designed to allow the team members to become more acquainted with each other.

Hand out a copy of the Treasure Hunt to each person.

Ask the participants to move around and find people with at least one similarity with them (e.g. born in same county), and one dissimilarity (e.g. worked for Abbey for different lengths of time).

Run this with your AI assistant +

Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.

Adapt this exercise for my exact room. Exercise: Treasure Hunt. Readiness: Publishable Draft. Core moves: Explain the objective of the activity and how the challenges are designed to foster collaboration and learning.; Give each team their first clue and explain where to look for the next ones.; Be available to answer questions or provide additional hints if needed.; Explain that this exercise is designed to allow the team members to become more acquainted with each other.. Return a concise facilitator script with timing, wording, safety notes, and remote/in-person adjustments.

Origin unverified

  • Where we observed it: The strongest current observations come from Participatory Methods; aggregators are listed as additional observations, not origin proof. (2 sources observed, including Participatory Methods, TrainerBubble.)
  • What that means: we track where an exercise has been observed in public sources. We do not claim to know who created it, or how popular it is.
  • No efficacy claims: appearing in this library is not a claim that the exercise is proven effective. Facilitator judgment and context decide whether it works for a given room.
  • Corrections: if you have evidence of an earlier or more accurate source, read our methodology and trust boundary and tell us.

Pairs well with